>Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1993 17:52:28 -0800
>From: bjb@macsch.com (Bryan J. Blumberg)
>Subject: LAT Editorial, 12/19/93
Charlie Zweig of GLAAD/LA got Ron Buckmire's request to post
this editorial, but he doesn't have Internet access. So,
he posted it to the GLAAD/LA bulletin board and asked me to
hand it of to the QRD.
--Bryan
Los Angeles Times Editorial December 19, 1993
THE REAL LEGAL ISSUE IN COLORADO
If gays can be excluded from basic protections, so can anyone else.
A Colorado judge's ruling last week permenantly blocking
implementation of that state's anti-gay law was of course the correct
one. This case made headlines because of a dangerous principle, one
that drew support from a majority of Colorado's voters at the polls last
year, and, later, from lawyers for the state: namely; that the civil
rights of some individuals can be comfortably be inferior to those
guaranteed to other individuals. Such a notion, in this democracy, is
untenable and insupportable.
Colorado's District Judge Jeffrey Bayless ruled unconstitutional
Amendment 2, the controversial measure that would have banned state and
local laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. He
also made permanent his earlier injunction blocking the law from taking
effect, saying that Amendment 2 "violates the fundamental right of an
identifiable group to participate in the political process." Lawyers
for the state plan to appeal the ruling to the Colorado Supreme Court.
Amendment 2 does not aim at prevening affirmative "special"
protections for gay men and lesbians; its goal is more basic than that.
It seeks to diminishexplicit guarantees of EQUAL protection that apply
to every American, regardless of their race, religion, gender or sexual
orientation.
The basic civil rights of gays, like those of any minority group,
simply cannot be voted away by the majority. In ballotting on measures
similar to Amendment 2 in other states and localities, many Americans
seem to understand this fundamental principle. Although voters last
month banned gay rights protections in Cincinnati and repealed them in
Lewiston, Me., they turned down such measures in Portmouth, N.H. Civil
rights protection for gays now exist in some form in eight states and 75
cities--including Los Angeles--and counties nationwide. Those
communities realize that the issue at stake is not just whether gay men
and lesbians shoule be protected from discrimination. Rather it is: If
gays can be excluded from protections, so can anyone else.
The same fundemental principle also animates the debate over gays
in the military. In recent months, concerns about equality and non-
discrimination prompted U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter in Los Angeles
and judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to
challenge the Clinton Administration's restrictions on openly gay men
and lesbians serving in the military. However, the U.S. Supreme Court
since has overruled both courts, clearing the way for imposition of the
Administration's "don't ask, don't tell policy, pending a lower court
trial on the underlying constitutional issues.
The policy--barring service by openly gay persons but prohibiting
officers from questioning recruits about their sexual orientation--still
faces the constitutional test. And, like Colorado's Amendment 2, it
faces a formidable constitutional obstacle.
========================================
Bryan J. Blumberg, The MacNeal-Schwendler Corporation
815 Colorado Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90041-1777
(213) 259-4914, bjb@macsch.com